Traitor
by Forest Ink
Summary: The world is a terrifying place. No place for the likes of me. oneshot.


Disclaimer: All characters belong to JK Rowling, and even the plot slightly. I don't own anything.

Summary: The world is a terrifying place. No place for the likes of me. A character study of Peter Pettigrew, once friend, once traitor, and now dead.

Traitor 

**By: Misfit270**

The world is a terrifying place.

No place for the likes of me.

I was the youngest child in a family of 5 brothers and sisters. Always was there some thing that they did better than me. Me, being the youngest, got nothing. Maybe that was why I betrayed Lily and James. I had felt the pressure of life since an early age.

I wanted power.

Fame.

Acknowledgment.

Which was why I was ecstatic when I found myself accepted into the glorified Marauders. To be a part of something. To stand out. And then I realized that I was the odd one out- there was James, with his amazing leadership and popularity, Sirius with his charms and ability to accomplish anything, and even Remus, who had his intelligence and quiet demeanor.

I started to seek other ways to be acknowledged. I didn't need the Marauders. And I grew spiteful.

……

It was only by chance that I stumbled on a group of junior death eaters meeting underneath the quidditch stands. I had just wandered there so that I could feel pitiful for myself after my "fellow" marauders had left me out on yet another Hogsmeade raid. And for once… I felt accepted. These people actually included me in on their plans.

Of course, I had to make some sacrifices to join, but it was all worth it. At last, free from the shadow of first my family, and then the Marauders. Something to show that HA, I was so much better then them.

And then, the sacrifices grew larger. I had to give up much of my time with my fellow Marauders, sneaking out to the meetings that slowly became more and more terrifying. The other death eaters urged me to be more like them, to bully in the shadows and to hurt those who had crossed me.

And I followed. Like a fool, I followed. I convinced myself that this was the right choice; they were the first ones to truly welcome me after all.

This was truth.

This was power.

Or so I thought.

……

I committed my first crime shortly after the beginning of 7th year. It was a Hogsmeade weekend, but I had to miss, though James had asked me to go along. I politely refused, telling him I was behind in classes and needed to study for the transfiguration test on Monday. He just shrugged, and ran after Sirius and Remus, but not before being casting a few appreciative glances at Lily Evans, who just happened to be walking by with her friends.

And I saw, as my "friends" made their way down the hall, the many admiring faces that turned their way as they joked with each other, completely forgetting that one of their number wasn't there with them.

I had been bitter then. I still am. I don't deny it.

But it was that bitterness that led me to creep to one of the abandoned dungeons for the special death eater meeting with renewed vigor.

……

I killed someone. Not with the Avada Kedavra curse, I was much to weak for that. I did so through torture through muggle means, with a knife. It was the only way of torturing I was capable of, the other death eaters had silently scorned me for my lack of power to produce even the weakest forms of the cruciatus.

And I felt the adrenaline travel through my veins in an icy rush, as the silver engraved knife plunged into the heart of an innocent child no older than 5, as she cried out in pain and wept for her mom, already dead on the bloody floor. And at last, the little girl collapsed onto the ground, dead, with her pale blue eyes wide, never leaving the man who had so unmercifully thrown her life away.

I trembled and shook. And I collapsed. I could have cursed myself then, I knew that the other death eaters didn't appreciate weakness. But they came, lifted me up, and brought me to the apparition point. " It is done," they said to me. " Congratulations." Before I was swept back into my Hogwarts dorm, where it was well after nightfall.

I was so stained.

I numbly stood in the boys' shower, washing off the blood of the little 5-year-old girl that had spurted on me after the first stab. I remembered trying to drown myself then, though I had stopped before I went to far; I knew I could never. I was a coward.

A coward with blood on his hands.

'And forever I shall remain', I had thought that night, though I didn't know then just how many would suffer at my hands at that moment.

……

It was graduation, the time when most students' parents were welcomed to Hogwarts for a special end of year celebration reserved especially for 7th years. I stood alone in a corner, watching as the only person that had come to celebrate my coming of age made his way toward me. Lucius Malfoy. My classmate.

My parents had to work that day, something that was to hold them up, they said. And my other brothers and sisters had all graduated, and were in the first few years of their jobs, where their situation was rocky; they needed to stay at work.

It wasn't their fault. I know. With the rise of Voldemort, the ministry had been busier than ever, trying to prevent the next attack. But I was still resentful. What was interesting was that the man I had come to work for and kill for was exactly the same one that prevented my family from attending my graduation. I smiled at the irony.

……

I wiped my hands in the sink free of the blood that had spilled on a routine torturing of muggles earlier that night. It was nearly two years later, and I, Peter Pettigrew, was officially a spy for the Dark Lord. The target was the Order of the Phoenix, of which I was a member of, courtesy of James, Sirius and Remus.

By no means had I changed since my first induction into the ranks of the death eaters. I had received my mark shortly after I graduated. I was still a coward; if possible, an even bigger one than I was then.

I followed my Master's orders out of pure fear, not daring to step out of line lest I be killed. I had always been weak that way.

And I was about to commit the greatest betrayal. The whereabouts of Lily and James Potter would be revealed during the status report in an hour. They had made me their secret-keeper. I screamed in my head for them to stop. But I held my tongue. I was terrified of what my master would say if he found out that this chance had been let slip through my fingers.

I feared death more than anything.

I put on my cloak and apparated to the old Riddle manor.

……

And I might as well be dead now; it wasn't as if I had a life. Nearly 16 years later, I was still weak, still cowardly, still a traitor. And I will die this way; I know. I kneel at the feet of my lord, kissing the hem of his robes, gripping the hem with one normal hand, and another silver.

I regret.

There is not one day I don't.

It is ironic that the one that feared death the most is the one most dead. Dead of spirit and dead of soul. I was weary of living. Yet I was still afraid of death, even more so now that I was certain of what lay beyond me in the lands of the dead.

I take my place in the small ring of death eaters that surround my Lord.

The world is a terrifying place.

No place for the likes of me.

End.

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